Rating: 
Summary: Just as good as MOO
Review: Galactic Civilizations is as addicitive as the original Masters of Orion and probably much better. The game strikes an excellent balance between playability and micro-managing. You'll spend little time managing and much more time having fun. The game also has that great quality of possessing a good AI that keeps you fighting until the end but also allows you, just when you think you're done for, to come back strong. Overall a great game for anyone interested in the genre.
Rating: 
Summary: A Galactic Gem of a Game
Review: It's Civilization in space, and just as much fun. Also addictive. Gamer's with families beware!GalCiv does not break new gound in any aspect. It simply uses a lot of tried and true ideas put together in a game that works right out of the box. It's really simple to play, but also deeper than it looks. It's not at all easy to edit (well, not for me, anyway)but for those who have the skill, some things can be edited. That's one area where Civ3 has it beat. Otherwise, graphics are good, sound is adequate, the AI is smart. The game seems to play out in three phases: the first phase is a race to get all the planets you can. Next grab and develop all the resources you can. Last, get serious about how you're going to win. There are four ways to win (no combo's) and the easiest seems to be cultural influence. Of course straight-out conquest is one of the options, but unless you're playing at the easiest level, you'll find the AI will give you a serious run for the money. There are some bugs, but the developers are fixing them. An expansion pack is promised. The company seems to really listen to the customers and fans and the fixes and additions reflect that. One reviewer here mentioned the lack of a tech tree, and that really is a problem. Another problem is the manual, which in order to be kind, I'll describe as thin. An on-line, printable manual is available. Haven't had time to evaluate it yet but it seems to be an improvement. Within the game there are not a lot of options for building and research: you can only research one thing at a time and each planet can build only one ship and one "social" item at a time. Interaction with AI computer players is also limited, much more so than in Civ3, for example. My main gripe (again) is the lack of an editor. There seems to be no effort to remedy that and it may not even be possible until GalCiv2 comes out. In summary, a great game that is well thought out, fun, and easy to play. Buy it.
Rating:
Summary: Losts of Strategy with Little Busy Work
Review: Galactic Civilization is for gamers who prefer strategic thinking to blowing up Orcs. As a long-time gamer I have become disappointed with products like WarCraft III which are graphically excellent but strategically sterile. The Galactic Civilization designers, however, put their energies into creating an intellectual challenging game that requires little mundane busy work. The alien races act extremely intelligently, especially during negotiations. Unlike in other games, aliens usually attack only the weak. This provides you with a benefit to building a strong military even if you never intend to go to war for in Galactic Civilization only the strong can enjoy peace. As a professional economist, I greatly admire the trading system which penalizes nations at war but also allows you to achieve a military victory by destroying your enemy's trade ships.
Rating:
Summary: Yup, it's addictive - just ask my wife...
Review: Imagine Civilization II in space. This game has all of the activities needed for great TBS - infrastructure building, research, military building, diplomacy, maintaining of morale, exploration, politics, and a user interface that makes all of this fun, not tedious. Hence, there's a new demographic out there - the unfortunate Galactic Civilizations Widow. The game creators, Stardock, have excellence customer support. I had a problem registering the game online, and they replied (with a solution that worked) within half an hour. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: This game is a gem.
Review: If you are looking for a good stategy game this is it. This is the game people hoped Masters of Orion would be. You can find out more about the game by going to the game's website, but I am so impressed with this game that I'd put it in my top 5 favorities with the orginal Civilization, X-COM, X-Wing, and Baldur's Gate II.
Rating: 
Summary: A decent game, but nowhere near Civ III
Review: Every reviewer here is brown-nosing the AI. I guess it's good, but any strategy game I play, the AI is good. I mean, the easy is easy and the hard is extremely hard. There is no reason to go on about how great the AI is. It's smart. End of story. The gameplay is smooth and thought provocing. The only problem is choosing techs. The game has many paths to follow on the tech tree, but no instruction on how to get there. The tech tree is not in the manual or in the game. You have to go to a third party web-site just to view it. I hate that, because if I want to head straight for the dominant military tech, there is no direction on where to go. The game is fun, but access to a tech tree is necessary. The game is enjoyable for a few weeks, but in no way does it stand near Civ III
Rating:
Summary: Addictive
Review: Galactic Civilizations is Civilization in space, and just as addicting. Gorget your social relationships, ignore your career, and stop buying new clothes because you aren't going to be leaving the house much after you start playing! Galactic Civilizations is a turned base 4x space game set in the late 22nd century. You command the human race as you begin inching outwards into the galaxy. You are aware that there are many other species out there but you're not sure where they're located. You must develop your societies technology and military muscle, balance your budget, and decide on a foreign policy for your government. The really great thing about this game is the sheer variety, every game is different. Some have complained that you can't play every species but so far I don't think it's a problem. Each game is different, different map, different quirks, different sizes of galaxy, etc. And you can scale it to whatever you want, want a massive map with hundreds and hundreds of systems? Ok. Want a tiny map with a few systems each? Ok. Want habitable planets (the sites of your future colonies) almost everywhere, extremely rare? Ok. Want to change some of your advantages? Want your society to be really proficient warriors or diplomats or terraformers or just really happy and quiet citizens? Ok. It's all there to customize from the get go. You can also rename the other alien species, adjust their intelligence as well as their general hostility level. Another cool thing is that these 4x games place a lot of emphasis on warfare. Really the way to win is to simply exterminate your opponents. Galactic Civilizations truly gives you multiple paths to galactic domination. You can win by being a member of the strongest alliance. You can win by dominating economically. You can win by cultural osmosis. Or you can win by vaporizing the fleets of your enemies and sending in the planet breakers. It's your choice. The AI will watch you and will respond to you according to your aims. It has shown itself to be a smart opponent and a shrewd negotiator, even when I have a high diplomatic rating I still can't screw the AI player like can be done in other games. The AI is also smart in that, if at war and losing badly, it will attempt to cut a deal with you rather than fight to the last starfighter. And the other AI players will remember if you ignored some minor races' pleas and wiped them out anyways. In fact, this is the first game in awhile that I'm willing to say has "AI", the computer makes a good opponent. Finally, the company is great. The designer is responsive and on the boards a lot, discussing issues. Several patches have come out (although they're more like updates, this game never crashed on my system) and the word is that they're planning a FREE update this summer! I think it's a small company but they obviously enjoy what they're doing and it shows in the product and the way they respond to the customer. Negatives? I suppose nothing is truly perfect but the only things I ahve trouble with are figuring out the tech tree (and the path to get to some far off tech). However, that's something they apparently working on for their summer expansion so that sounds good to me. Another thing I wish I could do is name my own ships. The first ship you get comes with a name but after that the computer automatically assigns one (ala Frigate 1504). The program lets you rename star systems and even alien races, it should let you rename your ships. It's a minor quibble and doesn't distract from my enjoyment, but it'd be nice to see. I will mention that there's no multiplayer (and would probably be hard to do with the game structure as it is) and some may be disappointed but I'm not since I don't play multiplayer anyhow. This is a great game and will likely continue to be so as the company seems more than willing to keep supporting it.
Rating: 
Summary: Good game, bad tech support
Review: Galactic Civilizations definitely seems like a big step up from other space civilization games. The AI is definitely an improvement...the other civilizations actually make intelligent decisions based on their situation, not just to make the game more difficult. For example, a civilization will be more likely to help you (and much less likely to attack you) if a big chunk of their economy comes from trade with your empire. However, all of my playing experience comes from playing on a friend's PC because it won't run on mine. Despite the fact that I have a system that exceeds the system requirements, and I use fairly standard hardware and software setup, GalCiv always dumps back to the main screen when I try to run it. I have exchanged countless emails with Stardock support, including sending them a number of game-created and MS Windows logs. After three weeks of email exchange, they have simply stopped responding. Not even an email that politely said, "We can't figure out your problem. Sorry." So, in short, this seems to be a really good game. But if you have any technical issues, you'll likely be on your own. I'd recommend buying this from a place that takes returns, since the game will just not run on some systems.
Rating:
Summary: galciv vs. guiness
Review: By the time I was done with the first game, playing the AI (set to 'fool') it was 3AM...hmmm. The game was 'aight', so after I got some sleep and my morning coffee (we had a 4 day weekend...it was Golden-week in Japan...lucky for me) it was time to try for a higher level. I set all races to sub-normal, about how I was feelin. Hours into GalCiv and the damn 'primates' start demanding everything from me...so I tell them [go away] and they start their 'primate assault' and start taking over my planets...needless to say I'm [angry], but here is where it gets interesting. 'Whitey race...with Maori tatoo' and 'Jar-Jar race...without the annoying voice' side with me and supply my fleet with ships! The AI figures that the 'primates' are even hazardous to their health, cause they know after me it's them. So on goes the galactic war through Friday night, thank god my girlfriend was outta town. My phone rings...I don't pick up. Was supposed to grap a couple of Guinesses with some mates. draftbeer or galciv? galciv tonight
That game ends with genocide of 'primates'...maybe next time I could end it culturally or diplomatically...but I have another idea...'I am the lord of the Darkside, I will destroy all who oppose me...hahahaha', talking to myself again. Time to play on a 'gigantic' size map and set a couple of races to normal, grab my beer and pizza (yep the have pizza in Japan...with mayo and squid on it)...ranamed my planet to 'Brother from Planet X'...this time I want to kill whitey race...enslave primates...make peace to 'metalheadz' and find that all female race...and go 'Beyond Human'...later
Rating:
Summary: Strategy First is Right
Review: The company name of Strategy First describes their approach to this title. While the game doesn't allow for close ship-to-ship tactical combat, and the combat graphics are minimilistic at best, this game will change the way AI is viewed for all computer games. First and foremost, the AI doesn't cheat. At higher difficulty levels it has some starting advantages (better economy for one), but otherwise it plays by the same rules as the human player. And a very cool innovation is that instead of 'computer vs. player', each AI (separate AI for each race) is out to win for itself.
In addition, this game is probably one of the most intelligent AI's I've ever played. One example is that in a recent games, one of other races approached me in diplomatic negotiations simply to suggest that since the Yor were in control of an awful lot of the galaxy, and neither they (the Arceans) no I (Humans) were able to take on the Yor, we would be wise to feed money and ships to the races that were already actively at war with the Yor. And Stardock's support for this game is awesome! Frequent updates to the game, player mods easily constructed, and the developers themselves actually respond and even debate various suggestions and issues in the GalCiv forums.
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